Harry Connick Jr’s wife secret fight with breast cancer
Harry Connick Jr's wife Jill Goodacre has been battling breast cancer for five years.
The former Victoria's Secret model revealed her battle for the first time in People magazine, recalling how a lump was spotted in a sonogram back in 2012 and discovered she had Stage 1 invasive ductal carcinoma.
The 53-year-old mother-of-three had to have two back-to-back surgeries and radiation, but one of the hardest things for her cope with was the weight gain from the Tamoxifen drug she's had to take for five years.
“I've always been a pretty fit person, and so to be just rounder and heavier and not to really be able to do much about it – that’s been hard. It’s taken a lot out of my self-confidence,” said Jill.
Harry and Hill in 1991 when they were first dating.
Her talk show-host husband struggled with the news, saying: “I was scared I was going to lose her, absolutely. I wasn’t going to let her see that, but I was.”
“I know from losing my mom that the worst can happen. She’s my best friend, and I really don’t know what I would do without her,” said the crooner.
Harry lost his mother to ovarian cancer when he was only 13-years-old.
Telling their children – Georgia, 21, Sara Kate, 20, and Charlotte, 15 – was difficult, with Jill revealing, “It broke my heart.”
The couple decided to wait before revealing the battle to the public as they didn’t want to “somehow jinx it,” Jill told People.
“But we wanted to be well on the other side of things before we told everybody. The doctors all say that after the five-year mark, things look optimistic, so we’re starting to feel pretty good,” she added.
“I’ll always be a little nervous, always having to get checked, always hoping it doesn’t come back.”
Jill and Harry married in 1994 when they were both at the top of their careers.